This weeping cherry began its life somewhere inside the Kyoto Imperial Palace grounds before Emperor Komei, who reigned from 1846 to 1867 and was the father of the Meiji Emperor, had it given to Kamigamo Shrine. That gift is the source of its name, Gosho-zakura, palace cherry, and the reason a cherry tree with no natural connection to Kamigamo's centuries-old shrine complex has stood on the approach path between its first and second torii gates for roughly a century and a half regardless. It blooms alongside a second named cherry, Saio-zakura, whose deep red flowers offer a contrast to Gosho-zakura's white, so that visitors walking the approach in late March or early April see two named, individually storied trees rather than an anonymous cherry avenue. Kamigamo Shrine itself, formally Kamowakeikazuchi Shrine, is one of Kyoto's oldest religious sites and a UNESCO World Heritage component, its grounds predating this cherry by many centuries; the tree is a relatively recent addition to a very old place, and its imperial provenance is what earns it a place among the shrine's named, individually recognized trees rather than the roughly 200 unnamed cherries also growing on the grounds.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
339 Kamigamo Motoyama, Kita-ku, Kyoto 603-8047
You can recognise it by its white weeping blossom, standing beside the deep red flowers of its companion tree Saio-zakura. It stands between Kamigamo Shrine's first and second torii.
Kyoto City Bus to Kamigamo Jinja-mae, at the shrine gate
In bloom
late March into early April, among the first of the shrine's cherries to bloom
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
